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Privatisation of the dominant Czech telecommunications operator, Czech Telecom, has been postponed. The government rejected the two best bids for its majority stake in the company.

In a surprise move, the Czech National Bank cut all key interest rates by 50 basic points last Thursday. The Central bank's board decided to reduce the repo rate to 3.75 percent, the discount rate to 2.75 percent and the Lombard rate to 4.75 percent.

The Czech foreign trade deficit decreased by 4.1 billion CZK year-on-year to 7.2 billion in March, in line with expectations.

The Czech government has appointed the dominant fixed-line telephone operator Cesky Telecom as the national carrier, whose tasks will be to provide the state with telecoms services during emergencies or crises.

A temporary electricity shortage threatened the stability of the Czech power transmission system last week. Some power stations in the country are not in operation, reportedly due to a lack of customers.

The Czech Republic's light truck producer Daewoo Avia is facing the threat of losing a major foreign customer, the Russian bus producer Golaz, which failed to renew a contract with Avia after three weeks of talks in late March.

The European Commission and the Czech Republic are discussing measures which should ensure that, upon admission, the country's annual contribution to EU coffers is not higher than the amount received in EU subsidies.